Crossing the Rubicon
by FlyStar
Summary: It's been 50 years since the Soul Society lost the Winter War...now Rukia is trying to piece together the fragments of her shattered world. Rated T just in case. Please R&R!


Hello! Well, here it is - my first REAL Bleach fanfiction. Hope you like, and please read and review.

* * *

**Blood-Colored Sky**

_The threat looms on the horizon_

_The water runs red_

_Running, surviving_

_Am I alive or dead?_

A small hollow-creature scuttled across the dry sand. It scratched its hard, white head with its foot, looked around at the drab landscape and continued on its way. A pair of dull violet eyes watched its progress. The owner of the eyes was seated on a boulder embedded halfway in a sand dune. She wore a black shihakusho and a dull, discolored cloak, and a sheathed sword was stuck through her belt. She'd been sitting there for a while, but there just didn't seem to be a point to getting up. She wasn't traveling anywhere in particular, and she didn't have any goals in mind for the future. She didn't know where she was, and she didn't care. Her name...she could remember it, but just barely, because she hadn't heard anyone say it for a long time. She hadn't heard anyone's voice in a long time.

.~'~.~'~.~'~.~'~.

_...Rukia!_

_What is it? Are you okay?_

_You have to get out of here! They're coming for us!_

_What about you? Aren't you coming?_

_I'll stay behind and delay them! Get out of here!_

_No, I'm not leaving without you!_

_GO!_

_Wait, Ichigo! Come back!_

"Ichigo!"

Rukia jerked awake, gasping. She looked around wildly, trying to get her bearings. She had been lying next to the boulder from earlier, trying to get a few hours rest before sunset. But the nightmare had come again...the horrible memories from her past that came every night to torment her. Rukia rubbed her head, brushing away a few raven-colored strands of hair from her face. Memories swirled through her head, flowing this way and that as her breathing slowly evened out. She let her mind sift through them, remembering all those things which had happened so long ago.

Rukia and her companions' journey to Hueco Mundo had been about 50 years ago...it could have been a few years more or less. Rukia couldn't quite remember. The captains had come to their rescue after most of their little band had been defeated, and some of the espada had even been killed. Orihime was safely rescued, and they all returned to the human world. They had rejoiced because they thought it was over, that life could finally go back to being at least somewhat normal. But when they tried to get back to Soul Society, what they found was Rukia's worst nightmares come to reality.

The official Senkaimon gate had been blocked for some reason, so they went through a smaller gate on the far edge of the Seiretei. When they came through, only a vast expanse of wreckage and ruins awaited them. The barracks, the training grounds, even the Sokyoku had been utterly destroyed. Panicking, Rukia ran back through the gate only to find the human world under attack by hundreds of hollows. She looked around frantically, scanning through the small groups of people and soul reapers who were trying to fight back. She finally spotted the substitute soul reaper trying to fight off three arrancar at once, his reiatsu blazing black with his hollow mask mostly torn off his face. He was bleeding from a large gash on his chest and another on his arm, but he stopped to wipe the blood out of his eyes and yell to her. Get to safety, he said. I'll delay them. Why was he sending her away when she could fight next to him?

"They're coming for us! Aizen and his Vasto Lordes!"

The hours after that were a blur. She didn't know where any of her friends or companions were, or if they were dead or not. She could only remember blocking and stabbing, fighting blindly and trying to escape with her life. Black and white mixed in her vision, and then everything was overwhelmed by a huge blast of energy that slowly faded into a deep, dark stillness. She must have lost consciousness then, for when she woke up after what seemed like decades, she was all alone in a drab, empty world filled with sand. Hueco Mundo? The remains of the Soul Society? Even now she still didn't know. All she had ever come across were the skeletal remains of a few poor lost souls half-buried in the sand, and the occasional hollow. They sometimes attacked her, but she had always somehow managed to survive their attacks and get away. Scavenging food scraps from abandoned settlements, finding the ragged cloak on a stroke of luck, wandering aimlessly through the sand dunes...that was what her life was like now. She hadn't come across any other people since she'd become lost in this bare wilderness. Would she just wander across the barren land for the rest of her life? If there was anything else in her future, she didn't know what it could be.

Rukia shook her head to dispel the last remains of the nightmare and the memories. Sunset was a few minutes away, and she should start moving. The hollows came out when it was dark, so she usually slept (or tried to sleep) during the day and traveled during the night. She grabbed her shoulder bag and rummaged around inside it, pulling out a dry chunk of bread and biting off a piece. Rukia stuck it back inside the bag, slung it over her shoulder, and got up. She started walking in a random direction, which could have been the direction she had come from the previous day. It wasn't like there were any landmarks in this barren desert anyways. She walked for a while under the pale grey sky, which was getting darker by the minute. Eventually she saw a blurred, bumpy shape on the horizon, which slowly resolved into some distant mountains. Rukia had never seen any other natural landmarks in this place besides the sand dunes, so she vaguely wondered if she should head towards them. She eventually decided that, yes, she would travel towards the mountains, and continued on her way.

A few hours later, she'd reached the foothills of the mountains under the weak light of the moon, barely visible through the dense clouds in the sky. It was already getting lighter...the sun would rise soon. Rukia ate a little more of her bread, then pulled her cloak tighter around her and laid down on the sand to try and get some sleep.

Just as the sun's light broke over the horizon, a piercing shriek echoed across the desert.

* * *

Help, a suspenseful chapter ending! Don't worry, I'll try to get the next chapter up ASAP.

Until then...reviews please?


End file.
